Anyone who's read the blog for a time knows I'm a great fan of G. K. Chesterton. Our Chesterton book club just read Heretics, a rather surprising title for a book that has absolutely nothing to do with religious heretics like Martin Luther or Arius, etc. In Heretics, Chesterton criticizes his contemporaries for their wrong-headed philosophies. Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, etc. all get the sting of Chesterton's barbed wit. He also takes on groups, like the yellow press and those who make science their god. It's a fascinating group of essays.
The chapter that most intrigued me was On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family. He makes the, I believe, absolutely accurate point that small communities, including the family, offer a larger view of the world than large communities. How can he say that? Because:
In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery.
Think about the Left. They gather in their echo chambers labeling those who hold views different from their own as "deplorables" or "haters" or "homophobes" or "MAGA Republicans." Do they actually ever meet and discuss issues with those with whom they disagree? It's hard to imagine the women on The View ever seriously engaging with the "views" of pro-life women, for example.
And look at the way the Left treat those who deviate from their "rules" or escape from their plantation. Blacks who dare to think for themselves and embrace conservative views are contemptuously dismissed as Uncle Toms or "oreos," black on the outside, white on the inside. Feminists Naomi Wolfe and J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter author, both experienced retribution for daring to disagree with the Left's agenda. Neither is a warrior for conservative principles, but it was enough to oppose the gender insanity destroying women's sports as well as canceling women altogether. They both lost friends and became targets of vicious slurs and slander.
This would be no surprise to Chesterton who described in his essay the clubs and cliques formed to protect one from interacting with the larger society which may be the diverse personalities in one's own neighborhood or family. When I read that I was reminded of notorious atheist Madelyn Murray O'Hare whose Supreme Court case removed prayer from the public schools. She disowned her son William, plaintiff in the case, when he became a Christian. Her intolerant and narrow-minded atheism justified in her own biased mind canceling her son with whom she never reconciled.
Chesterton, the story teller, believes we all live in an adventure, "a fairy tale," one that begins the day we are born. (Personally, I would describe it more as a soap opera.) Our "clan" may all wear the same tartan:
...but in their souls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartans. But the men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell. A big society exists in order to form cliques. A big society is a society for the promotion of narrowness. It is a a machinery for the purpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. It is, in the most literal sense of the words, a society for the prevention of Christian knowledge.
Does this not describe the world we live in today...a world that talks about "diversity" but wants uniformity of thought? The Left hates diversity of thought and critical thinking. Political correctness and woke ideology is mandatory. Object and you are censored and canceled by their "fact checkers" who are all cut from the same cookie cutter mould. Remember the echo chamber of the mainstream media who all seem to be reading from the same limited vocabulary playbook.
Chesterton's Heretics criticized the wrong philosophies of his contemporaries. He was challenged to address the question of right philosophy. And so his book Orthodoxy saw the light of day to answer the challenge.
We are all philosophers because we all have a philosophy of life even if we don't think very deeply about it. Some embrace a philosophy of feelings where everything in life is measured, not by rational thought but by how one "feels" about it. Some embrace a philosophy of pleasure and hedonism. Some embrace a philosophy of pessimism and discouragement: "Life's a bitch and then you die."
I think only a minority become true philosophers, lovers of wisdom. Socrates was one and he spent his life searching for it. He died for it. The saints illustrate it as well. If you want to become a real philosopher, a lover of wisdom, read the lives of the saints and a little Chesterton as well. Chesterton will invite you into a world of wit and wisdom and challenge.
"I think only a minority become true philosophers, lovers of wisdom. Socrates was one and he spent his life searching for it. He died for it."
ReplyDelete"Socrates was not a democrat or an egalitarian. To him, the people should not be self-governing; they were like a herd of sheep that needed the direction of a wise shepherd. He denied that citizens had the basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society, instead equating virtue with a knowledge unattainable by ordinary people. Striking at the heart of Athenian democracy, he contemptuously criticized the right of every citizen to speak in the Athenian assembly...The standing of Socrates among his fellow citizens suffered mightily during two periods in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in 411-410 and another slightly longer period in 404-403. The prime movers in both of the anti-democratic movements were former pupils of Socrates, Alcibiades and Critias. Athenians undoubtedly considered the teachings of Socrates--especially his expressions of disdain for the established constitution--partially responsible for the resulting death and suffering. Alcibiades, perhaps Socrates' favorite Athenian politician, masterminded the first overthrow. (Alcibiades had other strikes against him: four years earlier, Alcibiades had fled to Sparta to avoid facing trial for mutilating religious pillars--statues of Hermes--and, while in Sparta, had proposed to that state's leaders that he help them defeat Athens.) Critias, first among an oligarchy known as the "Thirty Tyrants," led the second bloody revolt against the restored Athenian democracy in 404. The revolt sent many of Athens's leading democratic citizens (including Anytus, later the driving force behind the prosecution of Socrates) into exile, where they organized a resistance movement.
Critias, without question, was the more frightening of the two former pupils of Socrates. I.F. Stone, in his The Trial of Socrates, describes Critias (a cousin of Plato's) as "the first Robespierre," a cruel and inhumane man "determined to remake the city to his own antidemocratic mold whatever the human cost." The oligarchy confiscated the estates of Athenian aristocrats, banished 5,000 women, children, and slaves, and summarily executed about 1,500 of the most prominent democrats of Athens.
One incident involving Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants would later become an issue at his trial. Although the Thirty normally used their own gang of thugs for such duties, the oligarchy asked Socrates to arrest Leon of Salamis so that he might be executed and his assets appropriated. Socrates refused to do so. Socrates would point to his resistance to the order as evidence of his good conduct. On the other hand, Socrates neither protested the decision nor took steps to warn Leon of Salamis of the order for his arrest--he just went home. While good citizens of Athens were being liquidated right and left, Socrates--so far as we know--did or said nothing to stop the violence.
The horrors brought on by the Thirty Tyrants caused Athenians to look at Socrates in a new light. His teachings no longer seemed so harmless. He was no longer a lovable town eccentric. Socrates--and his icy logic--came to be seen as a dangerous and corrupting influence, a breeder of tyrants and enemy of the common man.
...Socrates, undeterred by the antidemocratic revolts and their aftermaths, resumed his teachings and once again began attracting a similar band of youthful followers. The final straw may well have been another antidemocratic uprising--this one unsuccessful--in 401. Athens finally had enough of "Socratified" youth. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html
Thanks for the history lesson. You obviously know a lot more about Socrates than I do.
ReplyDeleteWhy did Socrates receive the death penalty?
ReplyDelete"What is strikingly absent from the defense of Socrates, if Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be believed, is the plea for mercy typically made to Athenian juries. It was common practice to appeal to the sympathies of jurors by introducing wives and children. Socrates, however, did no more than remind the jury that he had a family. Neither his wife Xanthippe nor any of his three sons made a personal appearance. On the contrary, Socrates--according to Plato--contends that the unmanly and pathetic practice of pleading for clemency disgraces the justice system of Athens.
Each side, the accusers and the defendant, was given an opportunity to propose a punishment. After listening to arguments, the jurors would choose which of the two proposed punishments to adopt.
The accusers of Socrates proposed the punishment of death. In proposing death, the accusers might well have expected to counter with a proposal for exile--a punishment that probably would have satisfied both them and the jury. Instead, Socrates audaciously proposes to the jury that he be rewarded, not punished. According to Plato, Socrates asks the jury for free meals in the Prytaneum, a public dining hall in the center of Athens. Socrates must have known that his proposed "punishment" would infuriate the jury. I. F. Stone noted that "Socrates acts more like a picador trying to enrage a bull than a defendant trying to mollify a jury." Why, then, propose a punishment guaranteed to be rejected? The only answer, Stone and others conclude, is that Socrates was ready to die.
To comply with the demand that a genuine punishment be proposed, Socrates reluctantly suggested a fine of one mina of silver--about one-fifth of his modest net worth, according to Xenophon. Plato and other supporters of Socrates upped the offer to thirty minae by agreeing to come up with silver of their own. Most jurors likely believed even the heftier fine to be far too slight of a punishment for the unrepentant defendant.
In the final vote, a larger majority of jurors favored a punishment of death than voted in the first instance for conviction. According to Diogenes Laertius, 360 jurors voted for death, 140 for the fine. [conviction was 280-220]
...Most scholars see the conviction and execution of Socrates as a deliberate choice made by the famous philosopher himself. If the accounts of Plato and Xenophon are reasonably accurate, Socrates sought not to persuade jurors, but rather to lecture and provoke them. [he could also have fled but he chose not to]
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html
Socrates was a pederast and seems to not have a love for the Truth so much as a hatred and contempt for his neighbors (and not care very much for his wife/children either) and maybe for God also (made fun of Athenians' fear of the wrath of God) while being overly impressed w/his own mind.
"Socrates was widely hated in Athens, mainly because he regularly embarrassed people by making them appear ignorant and foolish. He was also an outspoken critic of democracy, which Athenians cherished, and he was associated with some members of the Thirty Tyrants, who briefly overthrew Athens’s democratic government in 404–403 BCE. He was arguably guilty of the crimes with which he was charged, impiety and corrupting the youth, because he did reject the city’s gods and he did inspire disrespect for authority among his youthful followers (though that was not his intention).
https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-did-Athens-condemn-Socrates-to-death
https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/socrates-was-guilty-as-charged
Nice find in that GKC work!!
ReplyDelete